Saturday, June 07, 2003

1AD UNCOVERS A LARGE cache of weapons. And it looks ominous.

Inside a warehouse facility, soldiers of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, assigned in part to Task Force 2-37 of the 1st Armored Division with its headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany, confiscated five AK-47 rifles, two pistols, 10 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, an assortment of mortar rounds, a heavy machine gun, a commercially made detonator, 20 gas masks, and 12 million dinar in cash, or roughly $12,000, said Capt. Reid Norris, the Apache Troop’s commander.

Arms dealing isn’t uncommon in the eastern parts of Baghdad — but Wednesday’s seizure is one Norris finds troublesome, he said.

“The guys selling on the street, they’re just trying to make a buck,” he said during a patrol Thursday of a 900,000-resident section called New Baghdad. “The guys we found last night, and the amount of weapons and type of weapons we found all in one place, tells me someone is trying to organize some kind of resistance.”